Anti-intellectualism

[irenicspace]

Cliff Bostock recently wrote an essay for Creative Loafing called, Derrida and Dubya: Anti-intellectualism in America. It was very interesting. Some of his points made me immediately think of the OTO though. I read:

The anti-intellectual typically exhibits little curiosity about other perspectives and no skepticism about his own positions. When

Comments

[k_navit]

(sitting on fingers

Well...

[keith418]

I find the middle-classifying and corporate structur-izing of the OTO to dismay me more every single year.

I think that anyone who was genuinely concerned about these trends - I am myself - would then want to explore, say, just how middle class values clash with Thelema and what the essential, and exact, nature of that conflict really is. Rather than see John and I as ideological opponents because we talk about these issues, it might behoove you to actually look at the way class issues impact on the OTO along the same lines we are. You don't have to agree with us to get value out of the discussion.

I'm not a determinist, and I find the discussions of behavior as motivated solely by class origins to be deterministic to a degree that appalls me among members of the OTO. THAT is where my resistance comes from, and I'm with you in having been accused of being an intellectual elitist more times than I count -- so on that end, at least, my dis-ease lies elsewhere. I'm not a determinist, and I find the discussions of behavior as motivated

Re: Well...

[k_navit]

THIS is exactly what I"m talking about.

You don't know me, yet you assume that my only point of entry into any of these matters consists of my comments or lack thereof on flippin' livejournal.
And you make a reference to ideological opponents as if that is a bad thing to be. I think that is a necessary structure that does not have to be truly binary.

Keep your behooves off of me, man. And thanks for proving my point.

(goes back to sitting on fingers)

Curiosity

[keith418]

I think the issue of "class as a determining factor" needs to be looked at. On the one hand, I note that many people don't seem to have a problem with looking at, say, the possible determining aspects of astrology. They do, I think, have a resistance to looking at the determining aspects of class. Frankly, I think that something as basic as whether your parents went to college or not is going to have more of an impact on your values, your tastes, and any many other ways you approach your life than, for example, your sun sign will. I wish people in the OTO were able to look at class issues with the same degree of interest they show in astrology.

This doesn't mean one must embrace class distinctions per se. In fact, AC would counsel us to consider our origins, and our class position, as part of an exploration of who we are - not in order to submit to certain expectations and training, but to analyze them and overcome their limiting, even inhibiting factors. I think a reading of the early chapters in Liber Aleph would go a great ways

[elnigma]

Well.. I heard it explained that thinking is counter-intuitive, and intuitiveness is most valued by those who are witches. Funny, some of the best witches I know are bibliophiles (and some are writers

Thank you for your reply!

[irenicspace]

Your post has not been ignored. I think intuition is VERY important and AC discusses it often in the commentaries. I do think people can ignore their "gut" and use their head. The balance is knowing when to follow the right one at the right time.

here is

[tristan_moore]

a bit on the historical roots of anti-intellectualism in american schools.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sororenotis/156552.html. Let me know if you can't see that.

Re: here is

[irenicspace]

Based on your post, would you say that it is no surprise America is anti-intellectual? Because schools werte not made to make people intellectuals?

Let's assume this is true for a moment, what implications does that have on the OTO? What is the LCD we can expect from the membership? What obligation does the OTO have to change it? Does this cause a dichotomy between the anti-intellectuals and those few intellectuals?

Re: here is

[tristan_moore]

Its no surprise that a great deal of America is anti-intellectual. However, it should not be used as an excuse

Re: here is

[irenicspace]

I agree, people are so busy defending their position, they never actually look at it objectively.

[thiebes]

Don't we see this often on LJ topics about the OTO? ... Is it a demonstration of anti-intellectualism?

I haven't seen the debate...

It is interesting to look at don't you think?On some levels, sure it's interesting. The idea that members of the OTO are afflicted and conflicted by the values and morality of their culture, however, seems tautological to me. I get bored very quickly of hearing about the same conflicts over and over, and obsessive diagnoses that turn out to be nothing more than rationalizations and fantasy a significant percentage of the time. It is not that I am anti-intellectual, but that there is a bigger picture: Do we not also see hostility and name-calling among the "pro-intellectual" critics? It isn't hard to see the same adherence to blind ideology among intellectuals and poseurs. In fact I have made, and heard others make, the criticism that "pro-intellectuals" make post-hoc rationalizations of hearsay or their own assumptions to conform with their beliefs about people in the OTO. Do "intellectuals" listen to

Fantasy? Fiction?

[irenicspace]

I get bored very quickly of hearing about the same conflicts over and over, and obsessive diagnoses that turn out to be nothing more than rationalizations and fantasy a significant percentage of the time.

What it comes down to is where are we? How did we get here? Is our current state where we want to be.

If you are happy with the status quo, then I can see how you would be bored. However, if you are not ok and think things can be significantly better, how can you be complacent? That seems to me to be the bigger picture.

Or is there something deeper going on, manifesting in both sides of the name-calling? Is it a cycle?

An interesting question, what do you think?

There it is

[thiebes]

If you are happy with the status quo, then I can see how you would be bored. However, if you are not ok and think things can be significantly better, how can you be complacent?

You're putting forward the idea that I'm complacent, and that it is because I am happy with the status quo. These are two post hoc rationalizations.

Re: There it is

[irenicspace]

post hoc rationalizations.

No, observed reactions.

Equality?

[keith418]

Those who toss the term "elitist" around the most seem hesitant to apply that criticism to the structure of the OTO itself - which is, with its secrets, initiations, grades, and hierarchies, not an organizational structure that would ever have been invented, or implemented, by an egalitarian. A friend of mine asks, "If we are all equal, why aren't we all 9th degrees?" Given the difficulty of ameliorating the problems egalitarians are, invariably, going to have with the essential structure of the OTO itself, what are people going to do? Complain about tone? Call names? What other choices do they really have

Re: Equality?

[b_v_borgia]

Intellectualism is an easy road for lying, anyone can find any quote or book to support some claim or some supposed truth.

Re: Equality?

[irenicspace]

litterary jousting is not logic, we are discussing the anti-intellectual's inability to follow and use logic in a debate or discussion.

anti-intellectual

[rawmr]

Really, despite what the writer chose to use, the proper term, and one used for many years now, is "reactionary," not anti-intellectual. This is a psychological disorder, not an intellectual one, as anyone, regardless of mental capacity, is capable of ignoring fact, logic and reason.